Python 2

Somewhere in Russia an American officer has been tasked to lead some Russian soldiers on a secret mission to capture an 80 foot snake that was created by American scientists and has gotten loose near the Ural Mountains. Not long afterward, the officer, "Colonel Jefferson" (Marcus Aurelius) accomplishes his assigned task and puts the snake aboard an American cargo plane heading for the United States. Unfortunately, some Chechen rebels mistake the plane for a Russian one and shoot it down. This action alerts a Russian army unity nearby who then attack the rebels and subsequently take the mysterious container back to a nearby base. Curious as to what is inside they open it. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I was somewhat surprised by the results. For starters, I expected a movie replete with mindless action and special effects with no regard to anything resembling an in-depth plot or competent acting of any kind. Yet, while there was plenty of mindless action, rather poor special effects, and a predictable plot, I didn't think the acting was necessarily that bad at all. As a matter of fact, I kind of liked the performances of William Zabka (as the CIA agent, "Greg Larsen") and Simmone MacKinnon ("Nadia"). However, having said that, I don't believe this movie was great-or even good-by any means. It simply exceeded my expectations to a certain extent and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Well, when you sit down to watch a movie such as the 2002 movie "Python 2", then you know exactly what you are getting yourself into. And director Lee McConnell and writer Jeff Rank delivers exactly what you'd expect - a campy and goofy creature feature with questionable effects.

The storyline is generic, even by creature feature standards. So don't get your hopes up for a slice of cinematic masterwork here in "Python 2". The storyline is straightforward, for sure, but it is predictable to the core.

As for the special effects, well I will say that the effects worked well enough to their purpose. Now, it wasn't particularly impressive effects, and some was even downright laughable. But hey, this is a creature feature, so a relatively crappy special effects and CGI display is to be expected.

I am a sucker for creature features, though I know that I am 95% likely to be in for a less than mediocre movie experience whenever I sit down to watch such a movie. And that was also the case with "Python 2". So at least I wasn't disappointed.

The python itself, well in concept it was interesting. However, in translation to the screen, some of the appeal died due to questionable special effects. And the sounds they opted for the snake was just downright ludicrous. It made absolutely no sense that snakes can growl, snarl and such. It just added such a goofy level to the movie, and it was dragging the movie down. Snakes are silent killers, with occasional hissing. It is not rocket science!

It was actually nice to see the likes of William Zabka and Dana Ashbrook in a movie such as this, and they were actually the reason why the movie managed to stay afloat and be watchable.

If you enjoy the usual goofy and campy creature features, then chances are you will mildly enjoy "Python 2". However, I doubt that this movie will ever return to my media player for a second viewing ever.

There's a certain paint-by-numbers formula that these creature movies follow: the creature is always created by the military, which never makes any sense but we can live with it if the movie's good. The movie always seems to end up in a dark basement full of pipes. The good guys shoot the creature numerous times, but considering it's obviously added via CGI in post-production, shooting it never seems to have any effect. And then there's the half day of work they pay the pyrotechnics crew for, which is the last scene where the monster is destroyed. This movie follows the same formula, but overlays it with the Sci-Fi channel formula of having the characters behave obnoxiously and fight amongst themselves for reasons of, well, apparently they saw people doing that in a real movie once.

In this flick, a giant snake is loose in a really small Russian military base. A team of commandos goes in to get it, but they need a truck to haul it back with. Yeah, you know, all that training, all those weapons, all that organization, and a 100 thousand dollars to throw around, but no truck. So they do something that this audience member really regrets: they hire an American truck driver to accompany them.

So they get to the base and find that the 85 foot, 12 ton snake has escaped its refrigerator sized box, and since it's now obvious that they won't simply be hauling it back on a truck, they tell the truck driver to go away. Oh, if only he had. They even paid him the whole 100 grand, for doing nothing, and yet he still sticks around. What follows is the snake attacking these folks numerous times, and the truck driver whining and complaining about being put in danger. Didn't they give him 100 thousand and tell him to go away? He even punches the guy for getting him into the whole mess, but wait... he tried NOT to get him into this mess. Then he demands to know "the whole story". Oh please, please go away!

That's what really ruins this thing, the typical Sci-Fi Channel obnoxious lead character. Leave him out and it would have been quite watchable.

I was puzzled by the credits being mostly Russian names. Then I realized this was a movie set in Russia that actually WAS shot in Russia!

So I say, cut it some slack. A stray thought-- the actors playing soldiers in the film probably WERE former members of the Red Army! They certainly had the moves. And the CGI serpents are pretty dang good! I was impressed by a couple of sequences. In one, the snake's underside reflects the light of the flamethrower being used (ineffectually) against it. The other nicely-done sequence is lifted from Gandalf's "death" in LotR: TFotR, with a serpent playing the Balrog role.

But far from being a good film. The snakes (there's two this time)look better this time and they put a little more effort into it. Now the snake is being transported in a titanium container (except how could a sixty-foot snake be crammed into that tiny thing? Probably the best graphics of the movie is when they're hunting the big snake and they paralyze it with an electric gun and it falls down in slow motion while howling loudly. That part was actually a pretty decent shot for a movie like this. But the rest of it was kind of cheesy. Oh, and why would you stick a pistol that's set to fire in your back pocket? That's just suicide. That'd be of great help if you're running from those big snakes and get shot down your leg. Oh, and the character who had that gun in her back pocket, she wasn't even able to see a man standing five feet away from her, yet she's doing a rather good job of finding her way around. So much for being nearly blind. Overall, it's a lot better than the first one, but still not a movie I'd want to watch very often.